Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-23
The Mystery of Good Breeding.

The Mystery of Good Breeding.
Subtle, fragrant, indescribable, but
all-pervading is that lovely thing we
call good breeding. AS subtle and as
indescribable, but by no means fra
grant, is its ungainly opposite Keenly
conscious of the absence of the for
mer, but unable to exactly specify and
define when present, we know and
feel, but cannot analyze nor tabulate
save in cases of exceptional sweet
ness and refinement, when we can
touch the exact action and repeat the
commanding word which governed
all So with ill-breeding. We can
scarcely say where it was unless the
misdemeanor was as deep as we'll
and as wide as church door; but
there it was, and we felt and
knew whether we were able to define
it or not. No one can describe dis
cord nor harmony. So with the
mystery of good breeding-the subtle
harmony and passing flavor of true
politeness. 1t is heard in an intona-
tion--an inflection--in the choice of
one word over another, seemingly its
twin, but with just that difference of
application, rather than meaning,
which creates the essence of good
breeding. The almost microscopic
recognition of a stranger-the special.
| lied attention of an unobtrusive kind
is its evidence; the careless neglect
OF an apparently insignificant form is
its death-warrant. To be the only
stranger in room full of intimates
and to be unintroduced and neglected
is an act OF ill-breeding specially
Britannia. If by chance one more
kind-hearted to begin with, and more
polished by friction to go on with,
takes pity on the poor social waif and
stray, and offers any attention, or reels
off the thread of conversation, that
person has this marvellous charm we
call good breeding, in which all the
rest have been deficient. When you
enter a room and are presented to the
hostess, her reception of you proves
her good breeding or her bad The
WY her children meet you-the way
in which, at any age beyond the
merest babyhood they speak and hold
themselves is so eloquent of their gen.
tie training or ungentle as is a correct
accent or provincial. No idiosyn-
cracy mars the real essence Of
good breeding, and all the excuses
made for lapses and lesion- are futile.
A well-bred person may be as shy as
a hawk, and her limbs may be as
arkwardly hung together as so many
crooked sticks badly pinned. All the
same, her good breeding will be evil
,,,I ,,o,tI0x Lo. ,t,, hA,
awkwardness will tell against it..
Though it costs her the well-known
agonies to sustain a connected con-
versation, and though by the very
fact OF her shyness her brain will run
dry, she will sustain it with the most
consummate politeness, if not always
with the most flawless fluency. She
will put restraint on herself and
talk her best, bad as that may be,
because she is versed in the art and
mystery OF good breeding, and
But an ill-bred person, il shy, is sim
ply hoorish, and takes no trouble to
conquer the dumb demon within him,
but gives way to il and lets il nout
him at its pleasure. You feel that the
excuse made for him-or shelby
those who want to smooth over aspefi-
ties with varnish--the excuse of being
so "dreadfully shy''-is no excuse al
all. For you know by experience how
sweet and anxious to he supple and at
ease-for all the pain it costs her-can
be that well-bred bundle of nerves
and fears, who is as timid as a hare
and as sensitive as nimosa, but also
who is as thoughtful for others as the
boor is disregarding.
Good breeding is the current coin of
society. He who is bankrupt therein
ought not to take rank With the rest.
The defaulting LON bard had his bench
broken in full conclave, and was
chased out OF the street where his bet
ter endowed brethren carried on their
business. What the old money!
changers and money-lenders did with
their defaulting members society
ought to do to the ill-bred-to the
people who oppose all you say for the
mere sake of opposing you, and not
for anything approaching to a princi-
Pile; who contradict you fatty and do
not apologize when they are proved
in the wrong; who tell yoI home truths
! of bilious complexion and vim
egar respect; who repeat ill-natured
remarks made in their presence. or
repeated to them, making You feel
that you are scorned and deSpised,
you know not why, and villified with
out the chance given you of self-justi-
tication who abuse your known
friends and ascribe to them all the
sins OF the decalogue who brutally
attack your known principles in re-
ligion, morals, politics; who sneer at
your cherished superstitions and fall
foul of your confessed weakness, who
take the upper hand of you generally,
not counting your susceptibilities as
worth the traditional button. Such
| people as these-and there are many
of them masquerading as ladies' and
gentlemen OF good position and
| irreproachable credentials - but
no matter what their lineage nor for
tune, they should be cashiered, and
society would be al, the sweeter and
more wholesome for the want of them.
Contrast these spiny hedgehogs, these
aggressive thorn-bushes, these sting
ing mosquitoes and rampng tarantu-
las with their opposites-the well-bred
and gentle folk who never wound you,
never tread on your corns, nor offend
your susceptibilities in any way, and
who carefully carry out of sight all
their own private little flags which
may be your red rags. This is not
want Of courage, but it is good breed
inr-TI IOndOn Ouean